Card appliance



H. MAIER.

CARD APPLIANCE.

APPLICATION FILED APR. 14, I9I9.

1 344,547 Patented June 22, 1920.

IMI" X y 4 TTOHNEYS UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

- HENRY MAIER, 0F BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

CARD APPLIANCE.

Application filed April 14, 1919. Serial No. 289,799.

To all whom, it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENnY MAIER, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the city of New York, boroughof Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented a new and Improved Card Appliance, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

It can well be appreciated what difiiculty a one-armed man would experience in playing a game of cards, which involves shuffling and dealing of the same.

To assist men who are crippled in this fashion, I have conceived a device which will be of considerable assistance in this respect and which will make it possible for a man who has been unfortunate enough to lose his arm to shuflie and deal cards with equal facility to a normal man.

A further object of my invention is to provide a device of this nature which shall have applied to it a device adapted to hold the cards so that they may be dealt.

A final object of this invention is to construct a device of this nature which shall be extremely simple in its various essential parts, so that the same may be constructed at a minimum of expense and necessitate very few repairs.

Reference is had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in which like characters indicate correspond parts in all the views.

Figure 1 is a perspective card appliance;

Fig. 2 is a side view-thereof;

Fig. 3 is a front elevational View; and

Fig. 4 represents a slight modification with respect to the arrangement for retaining the cards so that they may be visible to the player.

The reference numeral 1 designates a base plate, which maybe of sheet metal, or wood, or any other suitable material. Preferably secured to the underside of such plate by any convenient means are legs 2, which serve to space the plate from its supporting surface.

In my preferred form, I construct this device of sheet metal. I provide upon the upper surface of the plate 1 a pair of parallel-spaced strips 3 and 4, which are curved through their entire length, as clearly shown in Figs. 1 and 2, so as to form a channel 5 which has its ends terminating in an view of my equal plane, but has. the center portion bowed away from the player.

Mounted to the rear of the strips 3 and 4 is a .card shuilier, which may include a ,back portion 6 optionally provided with outwardly-extending side flaps 7, a base 8 extending from the lowermost portion of the rear part, and an upwardly-bent foot 9 extending from the outer edge of the base 8. This entire holder is adapted to be rotatably mounted, by means of a pivot 10, which may include a bolt and nut, or, in fact, any suitable construction which would permit of rotation of the holder with respect to the plate 1.

s aforementioned, Fig. 4.- represents a modification of the card holder; and in this view, in lieu of the base 1, a base of wood 11 is provided, in the upper face of which is cut a groove 12 similarly shaped to the channel 5, serving the same purpose as this channel.

In operation it will now be seen that the cards may be placed within the shufiler and manipulated by one hand so as to thoroughly mix up a pack of such cards, the pack resting upon the upper face of the back 6 and being retained in applied position by means of such flaps 7, which would effectually prevent any displacement of the pack. The cards may now be dealt with one hand by simply picking them off the top of the pack, and at the same time this dealing would be facilitated by the rotational movement of the shuffler around its pivot 10.

The cards can now be placed within either of the channels 5 or 12, and by virtue of the curved formation of this channel the cards will be held so that although they are plainly visible to the player sitting directly in front of them, the next adjacent player cannot see them.

It is to be appreciated that I may make such modifications in its construction as desired without departing from the scope of this invention, as, for instance, varying the size of the parts, substituting material other than designated.

Having thus described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

1. A card appliance, including a supporting plate, card holding means positioned adjacent the forward edge of such supporting plate, a card-pack receiver to the rear of such receiving means and upon such plate, such card-receiving means including a single sheet of material having its back inclined upwardly from such plate, a base portion contacting with such plate, a foot portion extending upwardly from the outer edge of the base, and side flaps extending outwardly from the back.

2. A card appliance adapted to receive cards in both individual and pack form and being intended to be operated by one hand, comprising a plate provided with supporting legs and being formed with a channel having its ends curved inwardly toward the forward edge of the plate, the middle portion of said channel being bowed away from the edge of the plate, said channelbeing adapted to receive cards individually, and a card-pack holder, to facilitate shuffling, associated with said plate.

. HENRY MAIER. 

